Lent, a Call to the Courage of Care

Ash Wednesday        February 22, 2012  

Is.58:1-12        Ps.103       

1 Cor. 5:20b-6:10    Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21

Lectonary Link

  Ash Wednesday is a day of public confession for the church.

  We confess that we as persons and as people in this world have not been perfect.

  Well, that’s not much of a scoop.  But even though we know that we are not perfect sometimes we live towards each other in judgmental ways and in ways of assuming we are “better” than others.  We also forget how much we are compromised with our social settings.  If there is corruption on Wall Street, it is not my fault even though my stock portfolio may have benefited.  In our group compromise we can easily absolve ourselves of any personal responsibility.  And how often do we absolve ourselves by thinking, “Well everyone is doing it?”  Everyone has set life styles that are harmful for the environment.  Everyone is doing things that will cause major problems for our children and grandchildren.  And we absolve ourselves by pleading the helplessness of our situation.

  Yes we do need a day when we confess both as persons and as community.   We need a day of acknowledging that in freedom lots of bad choices have been made.  We have inherited the results of bad choices.  We have inherited the results of ignorant choices.  And even when we are given the possibility of new choices offering us freedom from being determined by the past, it is still easy for us to stay in the rut of never wanting to change our lives in significant ways.

  One of the ways in which we tolerate our imperfection is to make an important confession about our human nature.

   Today, when the ashes are applied to our foreheads with the words, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return” we are reminded that there is something in our lives that is so unstable that it is always passing away.  The ashes on our forehead are like a fast forwarding of what our bodies will be like one day.  And we can’t put lipstick on ashes to beautify the ashen state.

  Maybe today we would like to shout out a reminder to God, “Remember God, that we are dust, and to dust we shall return, and what can you expect from people who are made with dust?”  We may want to use this day as a day of protest to God for being made in the way that we are made.  How can a dustly people ultimately be wholesome, healthy, preserved and saved?

  Can you blame us God for our imperfect lives because of the way in which we are made?  The power of our vulnerable mortality is so profound that we are tempted to live towards our future state of being but ashes.  And we really don’t want to get there too quickly.  And it seems sometimes as though we are swimming against the tide, even flailing in the waves in non-productive desperation.

  And as we mourn our dustly beginning and are ready to let ourselves off the hook for our many imperfections both personal and societal, perhaps we can hear the God of Pentecost say to us today:  “Remember that you are spirit and that you will be spirit forever!”

  In the creation story, we are told that the original human being was made of clay and that clay had the wind or breath of the creating Spirit blown into the clay figure and the result was the living soul.

  This reclaiming of our spiritual nature is what the journey of Lent is about.  Yes, indeed our mortal natures anchored by what we see when our bodies are decomposed does not seem to offer us much future hope for our health and salvation.  But we are also spirit animated by Holy Spirit to let us know that we can be inspired by ultimate health and ultimate salvation in the midst of the things of life that are passing away.

  It is our belief in spirit that reminds us that we have genuine freedom.  And that freedom must be inspired by wisdom.

   God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change.  We are not going to change our mortal endings.  The fast forward state of the ashes remind us about what our bodies will ultimately be.

  God grant me the courage to change the things I can.  Courage comes from our spiritual side.  And from our spirit, we do not mock our mortal natures; we cherish them as long as we can because we know that the only way that we can be spiritual is also to be in our bodies.  Our mortal nature are good because they are created by God.  And since we know the vulnerability of our mortal nature the courage of our response is the courage of care.

  Lent is a season of intensifying the courage of care for our mortal natures.  Lent is season of both personal and social care.  As longs as we are alive we endeavor to cherish our lives and the lives of other by practicing the best possible care.

  I would invite us to observe the season of Lent with the courage of care, care for our selves, care for the people in our world and care for our environment.  In the season of Lent we join together as a community to be intentional about how we can better care for ourselves and the people of our world.

  In accepting our ashes today, we accept the things we cannot change.  But in accepting God’s Holy Spirit on our lives, we embrace with courage to change the things that can be changed.  The courage of care for our lives and the life of people who need our care is the intentional invitation of our Ash Wednesday liturgy.  Let us have the courage to change our world with intentional acts of care during this season of Lent.  Amen.

Coming out of the Closet (of Prayer)

Ash Wednesday        February 22, 2012  

Is.58:1-12        Ps.103       

1 Cor. 5:20b-6:10    Matt. 6:1-6, 16-21

Lectionary Link

As a pastor and priest, I am very happy when my congregation gather to pray in our public gathering places on public street corners.  I want the people of St. John the Divine to be seen, as often as possible, praying on the street corner of Peak Avenue and Marcia Street.

There was a young man who suddenly stopped coming to church so when his pastor saw him in a store, he asked him why he had not been to church lately.   He said that he had read the Gospel and was convicted by the words of Christ to become a Tameion Christian.  The pastor asked, “What is a Tameion Christian”  The young man said, “Perhaps you have forgotten your New Testament Greek…but Tameion is the Greek word for closet.  And Jesus said we should pray in our closets and not on the street corners or in public places of worship.

Well that adds a new twist to our Gospel.  Did Jesus of Nazareth have a “Don’t ask, don’t tell policy about prayer?”  Did Jesus really want us to live in the closet about our prayer orientation?

Street corner public praying or closet praying?  Which is it?  Maybe I should be grateful for all of the people who are not coming to church to pray in public.  Maybe I really have lots of people who are praying in secret and that is well and good, but what does that do for my worship attendance record?

Should there really be a disjunction between private prayer and public prayer?

I would like for us today to consider the meaning of prayer.  Perhaps the season of Lent can be a time for us to learn about how prayer can be practiced in such a way that it brings us unity, congruence and authenticity in how we live our public and private lives of prayer.

What is prayer?  What is public prayer?  What is private prayer?  Perhaps if we can have some insights into prayer we can come to some insights on the Gospel words of Jesus.

What is prayer?  An answer to this question is found in the Catechism in the back of the Book of Common Prayer.   According to the catechism of the Book of Common Prayer, “Prayer is responding to God, with or without words.”

If our prayer orientation is primarily toward God, then we do not have to worry about the difference between public and private prayers.

Prayer is responding to God, with or without words.  Perhaps this definition is much too general for your taste.  The catechism also specifies the principal kinds of prayer: adoration, praise, thanksgiving, penitence, petition, intercession and oblation.

Using this definition of prayer, we can at any time stop and ask our self the question:  Is my life prayerful right now?  Can I see my life right now as responding to God, with or without words?

If we have a limited notion of prayer, we can reduce prayer to the public performance of religious obligations.  And we can find ourselves in the role of the “public actor of prayer” or to use the Greek word from the Gospel, “hyprocrite.  Public prayer simply out of peer pressure is a motive of prayer that Jesus criticized.

But how can I always walk around being prayerful or having the attitude of prayer?  Prayer could get in the way of my work, if I have to have a conscious attitude of prayer at all times.

Perhaps, you’ve heard the exhortation wrongly attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, “Preach the Gospel, and if necessary use words?”

The same can be said about prayer: Pray at all times and if necessary use words.  One of the principal kinds of prayers is called oblation.  What is oblationary prayer?  Oblation is when the deeds of our lives are performed in such a way as being a response to God.  Oblation is when our “body language” speaks louder than our words and prays the active prayer of love and kindness and moral and ethical behavior.  Body language, oblationary prayer is perhaps the most embracing form of prayer that we can practice.  It is much easier to schedule a time to practice meditative forms of contemplative prayer of praise and adoration, than it is to have the behavior of our bodies always be offering a prayer to God. 

Perhaps during the season of Lent we could open our selves to a haunting question:  Is what I am doing with my bodily action right now a suitable prayer to God?

The Isaian prophet was criticizing the separation of the vocal and public acts of devotion from the actual practice of kindness and justice.  And that is where our prayers of oblation are most important.  If my public acts and my vocal prayers are saying one thing but my actual deeds are saying something else then I am living a dishonest life of prayer.

That is the kind of dishonest prayer that both the Isaian prophet and Jesus were criticizing.

And the best way that we can begin to recover from dishonest prayer is to begin to look at the prayer of oblation or what might be called the doing prayer.  The doing prayer of oblation also needs to go with the “being prayer” of intercession.

One way in which we can begin to practice the prayer of oblation, is first to practice the prayer of intercession.  What if the first thing that we did when we experienced a headache, or an illness or a loss or misfortune, was to stop and say, “Wow, I am in solidarity with everyone else who has a headache, or an illness or a loss or misfortune and I offer my condition to God in prayer in solidarity with all who suffer the same condition.”  And instead of living in “woe is me” state of mind for not being exempt from certain things in life, we offer our particular condition to God with and for others.   And so with intercession one can begin to convert ones prayer into an expression of one’s life lived for and with others.

And from intercessory prayer we can then move to the prayer of oblation when we “do prayer actively with the deeds of our lives.”  And this doing prayer is what will make our vocal and public prayers honest and valid prayers.

I would invite all of us during the season of Lent to think about our lives as lives of prayer, “responding to God, with or without words.”

And because this world is full of people in need, the Lenten season provides for us plenty of opportunities for the prayer of oblation…doing prayers…the prayers of active generosity to those in need.

Let us commit ourselves to prayer during the season of Lent.  Committing ourselves to prayer is our way of expressing our connection to God and to each other.

Should be pray in our closets?  By all means!  When we are alone let us practice meditation, contemplation, adoration and praise and petition.  Should we pray in public?  By all means!  But let us make sure that our public prayers are coming from those who also offer intercessory prayers and oblationary prayers.

In intercessory prayer, we accept the conditions of our lives in solidarity with other people in need.  In oblationary prayers we use the deeds of our lives to practice being loving responses to the human needs in our world.

During the season of Lent we are invited to learn intercessory prayer for others and we are invited to learn oblationary prayer of active generosity in responding to the needs in our world.  If we can beef up our intercessory prayers and oblationary prayers during the season of Lent, we will be able to be more honest in our public prayer lives and when we do, the Father who sees us in secret will show us the reward of living honest prayer lives.  Amen.